Arturia Forums
Harware Legacy versions => KeyLab => Topic started by: Eric Barker on February 20, 2017, 08:49:50 pm
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I contacted tech support regarding a timing issue of midi over the Kaylab's builtin USB interface. It appears all notes/data is being "quantized" to a ~20ms timing grid. I did a number of side-by-side comparison tests in my DAW using an external midi interface, as well as a MIDI Manager save file and sent them the results. After about 10 days of rigorous testing, they contacted me that they were able to reproduce the problem and are working on a firmware update! I'd heard people say that Arturia's tech support is a bit lack luster, but my few dealings with them have been anything but, so far. In fact, they've been great to work with.
A final note on the subject at hand, this USB midi quantization, as I call it, causes some notes and continuous data to come in at exactly the same time, which seems to confuse some software and cause some other side-effects. Fixing this problem may end up correcting some other issues as well.
In case you are interested, here is a screenshot of one of the side-by-side tests I did in my DAW (Digital Performer 8 ). This shows CC1 (Mod wheel) data being generated by the Kaylab's USB interface, compared to it's MIDI port output. Notice how all data points are 20ms apart, and sometimes two datapoints are sent at the same time. This is present in all types of MIDI data, but is easiest to show using controller data:
(http://www.ericbarker.com/dropbox/Keylab_CC1.png)
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It's nice to see these types of posts, thanks for sharing.
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Is this something common to all keyboard controllers that rely on USB, or is it just relating to a particular fault with Keylab? Does it point to preferring MIDI over USB generally?
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Who knows. From their response, it seems that Arturia wasn't even aware of the problem until I brought it to their attention, so they're probably still testing it. All I know is that they were able to reproduce the problem, that doesn't mean they know exactly what's causing it, or how to fix it, but they did say they were working on it and would try to correct it in an upcoming firmware update.
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Hi Eric,
Thanks for posting. I felt sure that I was getting latency over midi, especially with quick glissandos on my Keylab 88. I've got 2 of them, both give the same issue. I never thought to try the midi port instead of USB to see if the fault was still present as I always use the USB port to power the keyboard.
I also get an issue when using the midi in port, after a period of time (probably after a number of midi data events) the keyboard seems to choke and suffer huge latency. Power-cycling clears the problem for a while. I've raise the issue with support, and they took it seriously but I guess it is hard to find the cause.
Here's hoping for new firmware soon!
Regards,
Ant